When President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited the Ranch House at Camp Pendleton on Sept. 25, 1942, as part of the dedication of the base, he urged that the landmark adobe be preserved.

Maj. Gen. Joseph Fegan, the base’s commanding general at the time, reported Roosevelt went all over the Ranch House from front to rear.

“He told me as I jockeyed him through; what he thought should be done with it… He wanted to make a shrine of it,” said Fegan in a report to Commandant Holcomb dated Sept. 26, 1942.

Since then the base has done its best to preserve the circa 1840s adobe, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The ranch house property, including bunkhouse and nearby chapel, built circa 1810, was home to Pio Pico, Mexico’s last governor of California and other early pioneers until it became the property of the base in 1942.

Until a few years ago, the Rancho Santa Margarita Ranch House, known as “The Ranch House,” served partly as a museum and partly as the living quarters of commanding generals stationed at the base.

Thirty-five generals lived there starting in 1947 with Maj. Gen. Graves Erskine and continuing through 2007. Maj. Gen. Michael R. Lehnert and his family were the last to reside there because it was too expensive to maintain as a residence.

Now the 31-room white adobe serves as a museum filled with antiques, period furniture from the 1900s and memorabilia from visiting presidents and movie stars.

A gift shop was relocated into the nearby bunkhouse several months ago.

“The adobe tells a story that goes back to the days of Old California when the land was owned by Mission San Luis Rey,” said Faye Jonason, history and museums officer at Camp Pendleton.

Dressed in period garb of the 1800s, docents tell how Spanish explorer Capt. Gaspar de Portola named the land Santa Margarita, because he arrived on the holy day of St. Margaret, July 20, 1769. Pio Pico and his brother, Andreas, became the first owners in 1841 of the property, which was part of a Mexican land grant. However, Pio Pico had to sell the deed to his brother-in-law, John Forster, for a horse bet he lost.

Each room has a story, some going back to the early cattle ranching days.

“It is important to preserve the Ranch House because it spans so much of the history of this state,” said Col. Richard B. Rothwell, president and cofounder of the Camp Pendleton Historical Society.

The nonprofit was formed in 2005 to raise money and awareness of base landmarks. The group of civilian and military members works with the Camp Pendleton History and Museums Office.

Descendants of some of the prominent families who once lived in the Ranch House, such as the Forsters, O’Neills and Floods, have joined the historical society.

“The Ranch House is a tribute to the generals who wanted to keep the history alive,” Jonason said. And ultimately it is a tribute to Roosevelt’s 1942 visit.

The Camp Pendleton archives contain a letter from Maud Lee Flood, one of the owners of the adobe from 1882 to 1942, to Roosevelt on Oct. 6, 1942, “Your emphatic statement, as reported by the press, that ‘anyone who touches any part of the Ranch House will be court martialed,’ assures us that it will be preserved as part of the heritage left to us by the California Pioneers.”

In response, Roosevelt wrote a few days later, “I can readily understand your concern for the preservation of the historic Ranch House because it is one of those monuments of an earlier day of which we have far too few.”

linda.mcintosh@uniontrib.com

(760) 752-6754

The Ranch House

What: Rancho Santa Margarita Ranch House historic site

Where: Vandegrift Boulevard and Basilone Road, Camp Pendleton

When: Open house tours are 10 a.m. April 13 and the second Wednesday of the month May through September, or by appointment. A historical exhibit about the Camp Pendleton fire departments is slated for the summer.